Quick Facts

Whirling Blow

Whirling Blow

Instant

Force: 25

Deals 1009 - 1086 weapon damage to up to 8 targets within 5 meters. Requires a double-bladed lightsaber or electrostaff.

Note: Damage and healing values are based off a level 50 character in green gear. Our staff are still adjusting and adding effects to the formulas, so bear with us as we continue to improve these numbers for launch.

Tanking-wise, this is not as valuable as Slow Time. That combined with Force Breach (with Combat Technique) plus 3/3 [ability=5a2nM1i][/ability] should provide plenty of AoE aggro. I still use this, though not really because I need to when tanking. It costs more force than Slow Time and does less damage and less threat. It's more of a filler.

Speaking as a Shadow-Infiltration @ 48th level playing v3.1: When I first got Whirling Blow prior to v3.0, I did not use it much. The animation was nice, but the force cost at 40 was taxing on our 100 point force pool. Patch v3.0 gave Whirling Blow some loving. Now I try to use it in place of Double Strike/Clairvoyant strike whenever I am around 2 or more red nameplates.

In PvE:
- If I am in a group & after I execute Whirling blow attacks and the last enemy falls, I will find myself with most of my hit points. I suspect that since I am spreading my damage across several targets, I am not stealing the aggro.
- Other than Force Wave or Cybertech Grenades, this is the Infiltration tree's only AOE attack.

In PvP:
- If there are two opponents trying to cap a node at once, this is my card up my sleeve.

Below are a couple of edited posts I made on YouTube
Whirling Blow got some serious loving in the Infiltration Discipline as part of v3.0
- It costs the same as Clairvoyant Strike (CS).
- At level 28th it starts to build Clairvoyance like CS.
- At level 12 it gets a +15% to crit and +30% to surge which CS does not get.
- At 48th level, according to my tool tip damage (with Applied Force applied)::
* CS (2ticks) = 1128d & Whirl (vs 2) = 1080d. That is a difference of 48d & W gets the crit/surge buff.
- I get 1m extra range.
- I don't have to worry if I am facing my target.
- I don't have to change targets.
Before v3 it costs 40 and I only used it if I saw 4 red nameplates around me. Now I have my Whirling Blow keybound just above my CS and whenever I see two or more red nameplates I start using it.

Follow Up Comment
In order to find out if Whirl is capped at the tool tip stated damage as you commented, I took my Lvl 48 Infiltration Shadow to Belsavis and jumped into the middle of Level 50 standard targets and "Whirled away".

With excitement, I can report that Whirling Blow is not capped at the tool tip maximum (477d-554d). I had two events where I was hitting 4 targets at once and did not crit on any of the 4 hits. My total damage dealt when using Whirling blow against 4 targets at once was 1695d & 1740d for these two events. This compares to Telekenisis Throw @ 1800d which is my highest damage attack according to my tool tip.

My average non-crit damage with Whirling Blow was 432d/target as compared to my average non-crit damage with Clairvoyant Strike (1 tick) of 435d/target. CS wins this match up.
My average crit damage with Whirling blow was 909d/target (crit 32.5% of the time) as compared to my average crit damage of Clairvoyant Strike (1 tick) of 770d/target (crit 25% of the time). WB wins this match up.

Just to clarify the confusion on my numbers in my original post. My CS number was both ticks of a single Clairvoyant strike added together. My comparing Whirling blow number was one attack against two targets with the damage to the two added together. My data was from level 47, not level 48 as I had stated. At 47th level, my highest damage attack was Telekenisis Throw @ 1798 - compared to Clairvoyant Strike (both ticks added) @ 1128 - compared to Whirl (one attack against two targets) @ 1080.

This ability should only be used when you can hit 4 or more targets. The Force Cost is too high to justify the use if hitting less than 4. As a Jedi Shadow we have enough AoE abilities that we can use instead of this one ... or if you just like spinning in place like a pretty ballerina.